In 2008, the PGA Tour will award $278m in prize money. And it’s up to Steve Evans, senior vice president of IS, and his team to deliver it.
“The objective of the organisation is to drive value and benefits to our members, who include the world’s top 125 golf professionals,” says Evans. “And the primary value we can drive is prize money.”
Evans’s technology unit plays a key role by making the game appealing to fans and corporate sponsors. “We put a lot of energy into technology that focuses on enhancing the fan experience across all mediums,” he says.
The name of the game is data – collecting it, distributing it and analysing it – with systems and processes designed to support the Tour’s unusual business model. The Tour and its IT operation may be one of a kind, but IT’s role is familiar. Evans must deliver accurate and timely business intelligence both to support the players and keep customers – millions of golf fans – engaged with the competition.
Desire for the Tour’s data – specifically player statistics – has dramatically increased during the last decade or so. To keep up with the yearning from fans and players for more data and analysis on every shot of every tournament (and there are typically 32,000 shots per four-day event), Evans and his IT crew have spent lots of time and money on technological improvements that satisfy the growing demands of each constituency.
The Tour has a unique business model, says Evans. First, the PGA Tour is a tax-exempt member organisation that wields a powerful, global brand. Second, the location of the business moves weekly from one venue to the next. Third, its operations are subject to the whim of the weather gods. What’s more, the success of its main product, sports entertainment, is controlled not primarily by Tour employees but by the professional golfers, whom the Tour considers independent contractors. Finally, its core workforce isn’t the 2000 Tour employees but tens of thousands of unpaid tournament volunteers.
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